Presidential Politics Have Shifted Already

Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, right, took his presidential campaign to voters doors in Des Moines last month.Credit
Eric Thayer for The New York Times

DES MOINES, Nov. 3 — With a year to go until Election Day, the Republican and Democratic Parties are going through internal battles over their very identity, even as the races for their presidential nominations intensify. In many ways, the battles over how the parties will define themselves in the post-Bush era are nearly as significant a political fight as the presidential contest itself.

The continued strength of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who supports abortion rights and gay rights, is testing the question of whether social issues still drive Republican primary voters. Mr. Giuliani is talking about terrorism, cutting taxes, his record in managing New York City government — but he has made no serious effort to shade his positions to appeal to the social conservatives who helped reshape the party over the past three decades and helped President Bush win the White House twice.

Should Mr. Giuliani win the nomination, he would give the party a very different definition and face than the Southerners and evangelicals who have been ascendant until now.

The challenge to orthodoxy is slightly less marked on the Democratic side, where the party has tilted from the left to the center over the past 20 years. Tough talk about Iran by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has put her at odds with much of her party, and her nomination would suggest the party is willing to embrace a relatively hawkish foreign policy even as it promises to end the war in Iraq.

It typically falls to the nominee to provide the ideological framework for his or her party. That appears to be especially so this time, reflecting how both parties are somewhat adrift after eight years under Mr. Bush.

“The Republican Party is waiting for a nominee to voice a post-Bush vision for the party,” said Richard N. Bond, a former Republican National Committee chairman.

Of the two, the Republican Party seems to be at more of a turning point. Even if Mr. Giuliani fails to win the nomination, the fact that so many Republicans were willing to consider a candidate who was openly for abortion rights and gay rights — something that would have been unthinkable four years ago — suggests just how much the definition of what it means to be a Republican is changing.

On the Democratic side, the thirst to retake the White House is easing some of the party’s traditional internal divisions. “Ideological battles tend not to happen when parties believe they are going to win,” said Joe Andrew, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Still, if Mrs. Clinton should win the nomination, her campaign so far suggests that she would follow in her husband’s footsteps by trying to bridge the divide between the party’s liberals and centrists. A victory by former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, whose campaign is being run and highly influenced by many of the same advisers who managed Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004, would suggest the party is leaning more to the left.

For Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, it may be more a matter of tone than ideology. Mr. Obama has said he wanted to transcend partisanship even as he appeals for support from a party whose base has been hungry for partisan battle. Mr. Bond and others have suggested that a victory by Mr. Obama could produce the most striking change in the identity of the Democratic Party.

“Obama is in a position to reposition his party not only in terms of issues, but in terms of offering a more general embracing appeal,” Mr. Bond said.

The Bush Effect: The President as Asset, but Only to Democrats

Consider this tally: 47 to 2.

That’s the number of times Democrats invoked President Bush’s name during their most recent debate to the number of times Republicans mentioned him at theirs (and one of the two Republican mentions was criticism from Representative Ron Paul of Texas, an antiwar candidate). Such are the consequences of being one of the least popular presidents since the invention of modern polling.

Aside from Mr. Paul, the Republicans almost never directly criticize the president. They hardly talk about him at all. And when they do, it never seems to have much of a four-more-years ring to it. “Change Begins With Us,” is one of Mitt Romney’s slogans.

The Republicans are in a bind. The president’s approval rating was at 30 percent in a CBS News poll in mid-October, so to embrace him is to risk alienating voters in the general election. But the same poll found that more than two-thirds of Republican voters still approved of Mr. Bush’s job performance, so if the candidates are too critical of him they risk offending primary voters.

The candidates walk a tightrope, refraining from criticizing Mr. Bush while sometimes telegraphing their independence from him. Rudolph W. Giuliani praises Mr. Bush as keeping the nation safe even as he presents himself as a competent manager, perhaps to draw a contrast with the president. Senator John McCain says little about Mr. Bush, but is outspoken in his criticism of some members of the administration. Fred D. Thompson presents a basically optimistic view of the nation, but criticizes some Bush programs, like the No Child Left Behind law.

Mr. Bush faces a challenge of his own: How to stay relevant as coverage of the race to succeed him eclipses coverage of his presidency. While it is unclear how potent a fund-raiser he will prove, whether Republicans will ask him to campaign for them, or what role he will play at the convention, Mr. Bush may have shown a glimpse of his strategy in recent days as he stepped up his criticism of the Democratic Congress.MICHAEL COOPER

The Money Race:Democrats Find Favor With G.O.P. Mainstays

As if Republicans need more evidence that they are in for a tough 2008, even traditionally Republican industries are shifting more of their giving to Democrats this year, and especially to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who leads the Democrats in polls.

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which categorized contributions by industry, individuals working in the finance, insurance and real estate businesses have given $32.5 million, or 54 percent, of their contributions this year to Democratic presidential candidates. Mrs. Clinton alone received $12.1 million of that money.

A total of $28.2 million went to Republicans. Rudolph W. Giuliani, who leads the Republicans in national polls, received about $10.5 million.

The trends are even clearer when compared with 2004 (when there was only one Republican, President Bush, seeking contributions).

People working for energy and natural resources companies gave 80 percent of their presidential contributions to Mr. Bush in 2004. This year, 59 percent of their money has gone to Republicans. Mr. Giuliani has been the biggest recipient, with $818,000. Mrs. Clinton is second with $569,000.

The health care industry, which had a rocky history with the last Democratic administration, President Bill Clinton’s, has given $6.3 million to Democrats, including $2.6 million to Mrs. Clinton, more than any other candidate. It has given $4.8 million to Republicans.

The construction industry still favors Republicans but less than before. It put about 70 percent of its presidential money into Mr. Bush’s campaign in 2004 but has given just 59 percent of it to Republicans this year; Mr. Giuliani received $1.4 million, and Mrs. Clinton received $1.3 million.

Likewise, agribusiness, which gave to Republicans by a 3-to-1 ratio in 2004, has only slightly favored Republicans this year, with $3.2 million for presidential candidates. Mitt Romney received the most, $565,000, but Mrs. Clinton was close behind, with $524,000. DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Foreign Conundrums:A War-Weary Divide on the Question of Iran

With Iraq torn by sectarian division, Afghanistan struggling and Pakistan teetering toward chaos, it is the prospect of a new war — to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — that is dominating the foreign policy skirmishes of the presidential campaign.

Republicans frequently raise the specter of Iran on the campaign trail, and are quick to point to the Democrats’ stance in favor of diplomacy as a sign of weakness. Because the Iran question is still largely theoretical, it is also easier to talk about than the realities of Iraq.

Unlike in 2004, however, when President Bush won re-election largely because of his popularity on national security issues, most Americans now favor an end to the war in Iraq and are leery of a military confrontation in Iran, according to the most recent New York Times/CBS News Poll. Democrats are hoping that a war-weary nation will appreciate a tone of caution.

Still, the fear of being labeled weak remains, and so the Iran issue has opened a rift between Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her rivals, particularly Senator Barack Obama and John Edwards. Mrs. Clinton has been castigated for supporting a Congressional resolution declaring the Revolutionary Guard of Iran a terrorist organization.

Mrs. Clinton, they argue, is making the same mistake she made in 2002, giving the administration political cover should it take military action. Mrs. Clinton has countered that her vote meant nothing of the kind.

All of the Democrats, nonetheless, argue against a “rush to war,” banking that voters will be reluctant to open a new military front in the Middle East. MARC SANTORA

Court Jesters:The Rise of Comedians, The New News Anchors

It is no secret that late-night comedians have become quasi news anchors, especially to under-30 voters — about half of whom say they at least sometimes learn about the campaign from programs like “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show” (compared with about a quarter of people ages 30 to 49), a 2004 Pew Research Center survey found.

Conservatives say otherwise, complaining that late-night political humor slants left and skewers right. Jon Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,” is an avowed lefty, and Stephen Colbert’s on-air persona is a conservative buffoon.

The Bush administration has been wildly popular with comics, if not voters — the president and his aides were the subject of 1,245 late-night jokes from Jan. 1 to Oct. 10, according to a survey conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. That compares with 749 jokes about Democrats.

On the other hand, the Democratic candidates for president have been the butt of 383 jokes so far this year, compared with 312 aimed at the Republican candidates.

Bias or not, presidential campaigns are gold mines of humor, intended and otherwise (think “Dukakis tank” in the otherwise category). Senator John McCain might have scored the howler of the cycle so far when, during a Republican debate last month, he criticized Mrs. Clinton’s effort to allocate $1 million for a Woodstock museum. “I wasn’t there,” Mr. McCain said of Woodstock, the 1969 rock ’n’ roll festival. “I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time.”

Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war, received a standing ovation.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. rocked a South Carolina debate hall with his answer to a question about his whether he was capable of containing his long-windedness. “Yes,” was his one-word reply.

One harbinger of less funny days ahead: the candidates who have rated highest on the laugh meter — like Mr. Biden and Mike Huckabee — tend to rate lower in the polls. And no one will mistake Hillary Rodham Clinton or Rudolph W. Giuliani for Don Rickles.MARK LEIBOVICH

Even with Democrats struggling to run Congress — and drawing near-record-low poll figures for their efforts — they could hold or add to their majorities in both the House and Senate next year.

The Democrats control the Senate 51 to 49, including two independents who generally vote with the party, and are favored to pick up seats being vacated by Republicans in Virginia and Colorado, and possibly New Mexico. In New Hampshire, Maine, Minnesota and Oregon, Republican incumbents face serious challenges. Louisiana may represent the Republicans’ best hope to pick up a seat.

In the House, where all 435 seats are up for re-election, Democrats also have an edge. First, as of Sept. 30, they had $28 million in the bank compared with $1.6 million for Republicans.

Second, they could benefit from a growing roster of Republican House seats being vacated because of retirements — 14 so far. Those include the 15th District of Ohio, where Republican Deborah Pryce is stepping down after narrowly winning in 2006, and the 11th District in Illinois, a traditionally Republican seat held by Representative Jerry Weller.

But Republican strategists are focusing on the dozens of House seats Democrats picked up in 2006, which they say can be reclaimed by Republicans. And they are confident they can raise enough money.

“We don’t have to go back and win a lot of new territory to be successful,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “We simply have to recapture what we had.”

The Republican reclamation projects include the Second District of Kansas, where Representative Nancy Boyda won in a Democratic upset, and the 18th District of Ohio, now held by Representative Zack Space after a scandal sent the former Republican lawmaker Bob Ney to prison.

Other House seats will move into play as the parties settle on their candidates and frame their overarching strategies against the backdrop of the presidential campaign.CARL HULSE

Republican candidates are all staying to their traditional playbooks on taxes, promising to make President Bush’s cuts permanent — with some proposing additional cuts — and eagerly trying to tarnish Democrats as “tax and spend liberals.”

The big difference in this campaign is on the Democratic side. For the first presidential election since Walter Mondale ran against Ronald Reagan in 1984, Democrats think it is possible to talk about tax increases — but only for “the rich” — without getting crushed.

The leading Democratic contenders have all suggested they would roll back Mr. Bush’s cuts for households with incomes above about $200,000 a year — roughly, the top 2 percent of earners. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama would let these cuts to expire at the end of 2010. John Edwards would try to abolish the cuts immediately.

Democrats are betting on popular perceptions of growing economic inequality, combined with eight years of Republican tax cuts that have often benefited the wealthy.

The strategy could be risky. The tax-raising proposals could raise hackles among affluent two-income families, who may not think $200,000 a year qualifies as them as rich. And the increases could become far more unpopular if, as most economists predict, economic growth slows because of the housing downturn and soaring oil prices.

But the biggest trade-off would be taxes for health care. Most of the Democratic plans for universal health care coverage would cost around $100 billion, and most of the candidates say they would pay for that by reversing Mr. Bush’s tax cuts on the top 2 percent.

As politically appealing as this sounds, Democrats are already finding it at odds with another goal: abolishing the alternative minimum tax, which was originally created to snag millionaires but threatens now to engulf tens of millions of households. Repealing that tax would cost about $1 trillion over 10 years.

When Democratic Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York recently proposed eliminating the alternative minimum tax by imposing a 4 percent surtax on households with incomes above $200,000, most House Democrats ran for cover. The Democratic presidential contenders have been virtually mum on it.EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Ever since the Democratic Congressional victories of 2006, confidence has been rising among party leaders and major donors that they can retake the White House in 2008. Yet as the primaries approach, an abiding worry looms: Could Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lose a sure-thing general election?

Democrats have myriad concerns about a Clinton candidacy — she will ultimately prove too polarizing for swing voters, say, or her hawkish views (from early support for the Iraq war to her current tough line on Iran) will be out of sync with the electorate. Karl Rove and company played on these psychic fears by arguing that Mrs. Clinton would be (a) the Democrats’ likely nominee and (b) a fatally flawed candidate. And her Democratic rivals are pouncing on the theme, saying Republicans see her as the most beatable nominee.

Nothing aggravates Clinton advisers more than the idea that Mrs. Clinton will be the skunk at the Democratic garden party next November. They point to public opinion polls that show Mrs. Clinton beating possible Republican rivals in a general election matchup, her popularity with Democrats and the support she received from New York Republicans in her 2006 Senate race.

Supporters of Mrs. Clinton also warn that questions about her electability from her Democratic rivals could backfire on all of them, especially if she becomes the nominee. That is why Mrs. Clinton says, over and over, that Democratic candidates should keep the criticism on President Bush, a target that she believes will fire up voters and strengthen the electability of any Democrat who seeks to replace him.

Mrs. Clinton is determined to stay above the fray — that was her husband’s advice to her before the last, heated televised debate, her advisers say. Her team, meanwhile, wants to erase the “skunk” image by primary time, knowing that her rivals can make Democrats shudder by warning she could lose the White House for them all.
PATRICK HEALY

The Internet: Can Voters Hear a Rally If It’s Held in Cyberspace?

When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton posted a rapid-response video to criticism of her debate performance last week, her campaign once again displayed its deft use of the Internet.

Candidates are courting voters and donors by using online video and social-networking sites like Facebook, and Internet contributions have soared with page views. Democrats have maintained an advantage with this crowd, but Republicans have found creative ways to draw Internet supporters, too.

All of which makes this election cycle a singular test for whether these tools will translate into significant votes, and which will be most successful. While the YouTube debates underscore the popularity of user-generated video, candidate Web videos have become part of the “daily cut and thrust of campaigns like never before,” said Michael Cornfield, adjunct professor at George Washington University and author of “Politics Moves Online: Campaigning and the Internet.” “That’s now the new standard.”

Still, no candidate has taken as naturally to video the way television fell for Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, he said. The primaries will be instructive in the use of social-networking sites like Facebook, where friends of Senator Barack Obama and Representative Ron Paul dominate cyberspace.

“Facebook’s an open question mark,” Professor Cornfield said, “and we’re going to get answers in January.” Professor Cornfield pointed to Mitt Romney’s campaign as a Web-savvy effort, then offered up Rudolph W. Giuliani as a caveat to the victory-via-the-Internet thesis: “The reality check is always Rudy, who has the worst Web operation of anyone, but it doesn’t seem to hurt him much. You don’t have to do this like a virtuoso to win.”KATE PHILLIPS

Wild Cards: When the Unexpected Changes All Expectations

Game-changers: those campaign-shaking events that can alter the dynamic of a race.

Advisers to Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, say he might now be President Dean had it not been for the 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein, which they say curtailed his effectiveness at building a case against President Bush’s policy in Iraq (others say it was the scream, Mr. Dean’s blundered attempt to rally his troops after he came in third in the Iowa caucuses, a game-changer of another kind).

The Osama bin Laden video that came out days before the 2004 vote? Advisers to Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and President Bush agree that it helped put the incumbent over the top, feeding into his message that it is a dangerous world.

But by 2006, the terrorism fears that had driven the 2004 election were replaced by concerns raised by Hurricane Katrina and the Bush administration’s handling of its aftermath. The competency issue helped Democrats win Congressional majorities and stop a small but growing migration of black voters to the Republican side.

Every major campaign tries to protect itself against self-inflicted wounds, hiring teams to comb through their candidate’s background to make sure the boss isn’t hiding a surprise. But they have a harder time preparing for real-world events that can rock campaigns. John Weaver, the former chief strategist for Senator John McCain, said he and his team ran through several potential developments, especially, “What we would do in case there’s another terrorist attack — that was the main one.”

Mr. Weaver said the effort was meant to get the strategists thinking about what to do immediately after an attack, such as whether it would be best to shut the campaign down briefly.

But Jim Jordan, a campaign adviser to Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, and a Kerry campaign manager in 2004, said the politics of terrorism were unpredictable. “Most would find it grotesquely unseemly to plan out what you would do and say about a loss of life on a significant scale,” Mr. Jordan said.

An article on Nov. 4 about the state of the presidential campaign a year before the election misstated, in some editions, the surname of a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who said the Democrats’ desire to win had eased some of their traditional internal divisions. He is Joe Andrew, not Andrews.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A26 of the New York edition with the headline: A Year Still to Go, and Presidential Politics Have Shifted Already. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe